Being Slytherin: Ways and Means
by Elsha
Summary: Three former students of Slytherin House muse about how the Sorting Hat's decision to put them there has affected their lives. (Slight OoTP spoilers)


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Being Slytherin, Take 2

A/N:Quite a while ago, someone commented that when reviewing Being Slytherin that it would be interesting to see Snape's point of view on Slytherin House. I took this and ran with it, adding another couple of characters along the way. I know, canonically, we can't be _sure_ Regulus Black was in Slytherin, but given his family and fate (following Narcissa and Bellatrix as a Death Eater) I think it's a fair bet. 

Snape

Slytherin. It has been my home since I was a frightened child waiting for the Sorting Hat to show me my path; it will be my home until I die. I have nothing else to cling to, nowhere to go. I resented that, once; I longed for a way out, another chance. I saw what my House had made me, a pathetic follower, willing to do anything to prove myself. To murder and worse, to believe it was _right_. So I walked away from Slytherin and all it stood for, to Dumbledore and the Order and the fight against Voldemort. It was the right thing to do. The noble thing. The _Gryffindor_ thing. I tried to escape and where did that lead me? Straight back into the heart of Slytherin, into a mire of betrayal and death. No Gryffindor would ever betray their House in such a way, turn from the path Salazar's Heir himself chose for us. If Gryffindor's Heir appeared they would all follow him into Hell and back. But isn't that what I did? I followed the Dark Lord, Slytherin's Heir, into Hell. 

I never really left. 

Slytherin made me what I am today. I was a child when I came to Hogwarts; a child willing to take any path offered. The Hat said Slytherin, and so I went. And so I tried as hard as I could to become the perfect Slytherin, to go where Malfoy and the others led, to make them proud of me. It never worked. I might have been a pureblood, but I was never good enough even for them, never good enough to beat the shining golden boys of Gryffindor. I became a Death Eater to prove myself, I trod the one path they would never dare for all their vaunted bravery. I was faithful and I was true to everything I believed was Slytherin until the day I realised what I had become. What I had let myself become. So I went to Dumbledore for a way outand fifteen years and more later I am still where I found myself that day .The Head of Slytherin, now, responsible for guiding my charges into a brighter future than mine. A bitter joke. I cannot guide them anywhere. A true Head of House would be able to show them that to be Slytherin is not necessarily to be evil; to be Slytherin is to know your path. Nothing more, nothing less. A true Head of House would teach them to love their House for what it really is, not for the shallow version they think it to be. 

How can I teach them to love what I hate? 

I hate Slytherin. I hate the lies and deceit, I hate the vision that tricked me into thinking the Dark Lord was my future. I hate it because I loved it, because at the end of all things it is my home and my life. I have _nothing_, if I am not Slytherin. I cannot return to what I abandoned. I cannot join those who despise me for being the person I am. I can do nothing. And it is this inability to change myself, to change my House, to change what others think of it, that truly rankles. It could be more. I could have been more. But I accepted the shallow version, the truth believed by Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff. I am what _Gryffindors_ believe Slytherin to be. I made that choice. Slytherins choose their path and walk it. What I should have said was "This is what I am, and I am Slytherinso this is part of being Slytherin." Instead I said "I am Slytherin, and so are theyso I should be as they are." I hate Slytherin at times, and it is my own fault. That is the worst of it. 

Then there are the times when I feel so proud of my House, of our long and noble history that everyone forgets. When I see my children, Salazar's chosen, having a future unstained by the blood and war that tore my generation apart. Maybe some of them will bring Slytherin back to the rest of Hogwarts. Maybe one of them will make it what it _should_ be, will love and cherish the House for what it is. Maybe Slytherin has a future, outside of the stereotype. Maybe Slytherin can redefine itself as what it chooses to be, instead of being what the other Houses have been led to believe it is. 

Maybes are for the weak. I learned that a long time ago. Besides, we are Slytherin. We do not say " it may be". We say "it will be." So let one of them, one of those who wear the green and silver in Hogwarts' halls today

Let one of them be able to say it _will_ be so. 

Tom

Salazar Slytherin was right when he founded our House so long ago. It is a pity that it has had to wait until now for its final flowering, but all things happen in their time. This is my time, this is Slytherin's time. We will take what is ours and we will rule, and no-one, not that old fool Dumbledore nor that young fool Potter, will stand in my way. I am Slytherin's Heir. I _am_ Slytherin. When I first came to Hogwarts, I heard some try to tell me what being Slytherin was, what I should be. They did not know, of course. They could not. I do not need to be told what being Slytherin is, informed of its history or its pride, instructed in the ways of the House. Slytherin is what I make it. Slytherins are what I say they should be. Fifty years and more on, and children whose parents were not born when I was at school still dance to my tune, taking Slytherin along the path I set for it – the path to power and glory and the cleansing that was meant to happen so long ago. Away from the other Houses at the school that weaken it with their attempts at unity, away from foolish sympathy or ideas that ambition should be to help people. They misunderstand the very _meaning_ of ambition. Ambition is a dream that knows no boundaries, no limits. Ambition does not wait for others or care for them. Why should it? Pure ambition will take you anywhere. 

We do not need the other Houses. Bravery, loyalty, wisdom. They mean nothing. What is bravery without the ability to step forward and use it for a purpose, what is loyalty when there is no-one to follow, what is wisdom when you have no dream to pursue? Without the ambition that is Slytherin they would lie in the dust, and all of them forget that, forget what they owe us. Forget that the meagre shreds of success and power they might have found up until now – for they will not keep them, not now I am once again on the ascendant – those shreds came from the scrap of Slytherin that resides in everyone's hearts. Only those who have enough of it, only those who are worthy, are chosen for my House. There are others who may pass, who may serve me, but they will never come to anything. They are nothing and no one. Only Slytherins can follow me until the end, and only they will reap the true rewards of serving me. They are the only ones who know the necessity of my dream, of my ambition; to destroy the halfbloods and Muggleborns who pollute our land, to give us the strength and the power that we should have over the world. We have magic, we have power! And the stupid fools squander it trying to be fair and reasonable, with their silly talk of rights and equality and fairness. There is no good, and no evil , and yet they go on about the "evil" I represent. The children whisper of the "evil" that is Slytherin. It is jealousy and ignorance that festers at their hearts, that leads them to say this. We of Slytherin are the only ones who have the ability to reach for true power; and those who are left in our wake call us evil, because they cannot bear to contemplate that we are better. 

Perhaps it is understandable. They are, after all, so much lesser than we are. 

Slytherin dances to the tune I have set it. It is my House, and my people, and one day soon this will be clear for all to see. The most laughable are the ones who claim that "being Slytherin doesn't make someone a Death Eater. It doesn't make them evil." Do they truly not see it? _I_ am Slytherin. Slytherin is what I make of it. If they name me evil, then they name the Slytherins evil – every single true one. Everyone who is Slytherin is mine, heart and soul, and those who do not yet know it will be made to, or they will pay the price. They will be what I make of them.   
Or they are not Slytherin. 

Regulus

I was so _happy_ when I was Sorted into Slytherin. The family House, the right place to be. This was my chance. This was my chance to prove that I was better than Sirius, better than my older brother who could do no wrong until the day the Sorting Hat sent him to Gryffindor. I might be younger, I might have been not as smart or quick or witty, but I was a Slytherin, I was the one who would keep the House of Black where it had been for so many centuries, the traditions and the pride. What did I ever get out of Slytherin? Darkness and death. 

It's too ironic for words. Slytherin is the House of the ambitious. And Slytherin was never enough for me. I was meant for the House, alright. I had it, the burning ambition and the pureblood pride. I wanted to beat my brother, my Gryffindor brother, who was at once to be admired and reviled. He was everything I wasn't. He had the natural talent, the wit, the friends, the advantage in age, the charisma. Everything except what I had: the love and protection of our family. I was the younger, I was less brilliant, less funny, less everythingbut I was in Slytherin. Our parents lavished the attention and affection they would have given him on me, because he was in Gryffindor, he spent his time with Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers, he was a traitor to everything we stood for. It was the only advantage I had over him, and I used it well. 

I became the perfect Slytherin, because it was the only thing I _could _beat him at. I spent my time ingratiating myself with the right people, Rosier, Wilkes, Snape. In the holidays I would hang off our cousin Bellatrix's every word. She was one of the Dark Lord's favourites, I knew, and I coveted that. Our parents might not be Death Eaters, but they thought he had the right idea. So that was the path I took. Because I was Slytherin, and it was all I had. 

But it was never enough. All that ambitionwasted. All being Slytherin ever meant to me was that I had something Sirius didn't. For and of itself, my House meant nothing to me. It was a means to an end. I guess that shows how very Slytherin I was, at heart. I saw Sirius being a loyal Gryffindor, ready to defend his House to the death; for my part, I considered Slytherin better. But I considered it, I didn't _feel_ it. It had to be, that was all. It gave me my path to power and approval. It was what I wantedwasn't it? It put me in the right place, and for that I was grateful. If you are asking me to define what being Slytherin meantit meant no more or less than a chance. Than rightness. That was all. 

I was out of Hogwarts before I realised how very wrong I was. Slytherin was a means to an end. But one end only, and a means that took away my choice. If I'd been in Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff, God forbid, I could have _chosen_. To follow my older brother, or to follow my parents. But being in Slytherin gave me no choice except to make myself what my parents wanted me to be. It confirmed my belief that all I was good for was that. Ambition, pride. I know there must be more to Slytherin. There _has_ to be, because so many people came out of Slytherin and didn't choose the Dark Lord's side. Not as many as the other Housesbut they did. Where was that choice for me? Lost, because Slytherin represented my path, not my opportunity. Maybe if I'd seen it as what I was, not what I had to domaybe thenmaybe I could have chosen differently. 

If. But I did choose differently. Didn't I? In my folly, I thought I could escape. I realised what being a Death Eater meant, really meant, and I ran. Heart of the lion, my name means, but I was no Gryffindor to live out my choice. I ran and I died. It never crossed my mind to go to Sirius for help, when my doubts began. Why would he listen? Why would he care? I was only a Slytherin. Only my parents' son.   
In the end, I still envied him. Slytherin was my advantage, but it was a poisoned gift. Gryffindor was his shining path to freedom and choicedespite our family. He really did have everything. I had nothing. Slytherin. My life, my death. And stillno more than that. A means to an end, not a way to live. 

If it had been more than that

that I cannot know. 


End file.
